Stop the Lin-Sanity (I couldn't resist...)

Now that the hype about Knicks guard and newly minted star Jeremy Lin has died down a notch or two, it's worth thinking about how fast it built up in the first place.

Sports journalists, never ones to shy away from star-making and burnishing, wrote and spoke about Lin's "meteoric rise" to fame based on his scintillating, if a little reckless and erratic, performance during a recent stretch of games. He continues to play pretty well, even as Knicks fans shift their gaze to the resignation of their coach, Mike D'Antoni, a departure reportedly hastened by a discontented Carmelo Anthony, arguably the team's best player.

Lin's ascendancy caused me to wonder if the media haven't changed the conditions for a "meteoric rise?" Can you "come out of nowhere" faster than you used to? Certainly, the fact that sports news is available every millisecond of every day has something to do with it, as does our ongoing appetite for celebrities. But it sure does seem that we've started to apply the "star" label on someone abruptly, almost without thinking about it.

This is not to say Lin's isn't a compelling story - he's the first Asian-American player in the NBA to rise to prominence. He seems like a nice guy. He went to Harvard. For all I know, he can sing and dance too. And he likely deserves - if anyone actually deserves - the notoriety and its attendant perks.

But fitting him for the fame suit just seemed to take even less time than usual. Of course, this may mean that "flash in the pan" status will be conferred just as quickly (this is where we're are supposed to say, "I hope he saves his money").

But thanks to the media, it all happened so fast.